


Paintings and Hourglasses

by ShianneUrami



Series: Homestuck Shipping World Cup 2014 [8]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 21:24:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1914354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShianneUrami/pseuds/ShianneUrami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death's Hourglass - "The lifetime of a character has a physical manifestation, an object from which it's ticking, flowing or trickling ominously away."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paintings and Hourglasses

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for [BR4 prompt.](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/21508.html?thread=5946628#cmt5946628)

“So, is it because you’re a Time player that you’re like, some dorky vampire?” Jade asked, laying in Dave’s lap, watching out across the grass, barefoot on the nice summer day in the shade.   
  
Dave scoffed a laugh above her, absently braiding flowers into her hair because the girl in his lap, legit flower child. He leaned over her a little, “Jaaade, I vant to suck your bluuud.”   
  
With a laugh she pushed his face away, “Emphasis on DORKY!”   
  
He went back to his work and she sighed, stretching out a bit, “But seriously, either Striders age like fine wine, which is wrong because you buttfaces are like spoiled milk-”   
  
“Wow, rude.”   
  
“Or you’re not aging anymore.”   


Jade’s eyebrows were high on her forehead when she looked up at her boyfriend. She was expecting an answer. He leaned over her again, pressing a little kiss to her lips, “Want me to tell you the secret?”   
  
“Yes, yes, tell me!”   
  
“There’s a painting in the attic.”   
  
Jade rolled off his lap, half screeching, half giggling, “Damn it Dave, I’m being serious!”   
  
“So am I! I never specified what kind of painting, but I do totally have a painting in the attic.” He smiled across the grass at her, a sly little look.   
  
“You’re such a meaniebutt, the meaniest of butts. Rose and John have noticed too. We won a while ago and yeah we totally have some of our sparks and fireworks, but you haven’t been aging and it doesn’t take a sleuthmaster like Detective Janey to figure out somethin’s up!” She scuttled back over to poke a finger into his face, the end of her finger just a hair’s breadth from the end of his nose, “And you mister, aren’t good at keeping secrets!”  
  


“What makes you think I’m not good at keeping secrets then? What do you know about me that I’ve tried to keep a secret?” Dave raised an eyebrow over the edge of his glasses. He wondered if she’d ever read Harry Potter. She had the dorky round glasses, it reminded him of it. It was strange to have never asked her, “Yo, you ever read Harry Potter?”   
  
“What? Uh, yeah when I was younger. Off topic though, not very sneaky, sir!” She tapped the end of his nose as if he were a bad dog.   
  
Dave cracked a smile for her, “You also didn’t answer my question.”  
  


Jade stared up at him for a minute before pouting, punching him in the arm and flopping back into his lap, “You’re lame.”   
  
He leaned over her, leaning over to tuck hair out of her face again, “No, you.”   
  
Laying in the sunlight of the best summer day to date, they ended up kissing a lot and playing chase on the playground at the bottom of the hill in which Dave chased Jade because she was just too damn fast for proper tag. They got ice cream and walked the still warm streets, the sun setting through the buildings. He dropped her back off at John’s place where she’d set up camp as of lately and got more kisses on the doorstep.  
  


He trudged home, through the quiet streets, the lamps coming on as he walked. It made him feel like a total badass until his relaxing walk home had him lagging behind the lights and he was left behind by the mysterious stranger trope. He didn’t have a duster anyway.   
  
Dave’s apartment was quiet, which was nice, he had some privacy. Sometimes in the old apartment he’d hear Bro milling around somewhere, or up on the roof. Not here. But it was okay. He was totally fine with that, absolutely.   
  
The painting in the attic was some weird football player and a unicorn. It had been in the house with some boxes he never bothered getting into when he’d moved in. He’d left well enough alone. The painting might not have been a Dorian Grey trope, but it didn’t mean there wasn’t a reason for what Jade had pestered him about. It was true, he hadn’t been aging, and all of his friends had noticed. Other people were going to start noticing too, probably.  
  


Down in the basement was an hourglass. Above the hourglass was a clock. The clock held no significance, but the hourglass… That was something truly special. And in a way, very scary. Inside it, were little marbles, and in the two years since they’d beaten the game and climbed the whole damn mountain, only two marbles had dropped. They hadn’t been on the same date each year, so charting them was going to need a daily check.   
  
He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else, not to John or Rose. Not even to Jade. Dave wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, but he was going to keep it hidden for as long as he could. It was a glass piece spanning at least ten feet high and five feet across, and all the tiny marbles inside, thousands upon thousands of them locked away, all contained a different image, ever shifting and kind of hecka confusing sometimes. Like one of those walls of televisions, only ten times worse.   
  
Each had a world, and almost always something happening. Dave’s best guess had been that these were all the dream bubbles from the game. Or, at least, all the dream bubbles he and all his alternate selves had been in at one point or another.   
  
The two marbles at the bottom of the hourglass held images frozen in time of dead Daves, one in a green felt suit with his throat cut, and another impaled upon a blade.   
  
Staring into the hourglass, it was awe inspiring, but never in a way he could decide was good or bad. He’d considered smashing it a few times, but he wasn’t sure if he broke it, if he’d die or not. So much of this was left up to unanswerable uncertainty, and that put him on edge, and when Dave was on edge, he tended to sweep things under the rug.   
  
And that’s where this stayed. Under the floorboard, ticking his life away. Presumably.  
  


Watching the ever shifting images, he was lost in thought behind shaded lenses for a while. One marble dropped, spinning down to join the three in the bottom. Narrowing his eyes to look it over, Dave saw himself with a load of bullet holes in his back.

Dave took a moment to jot down date before he retreated back upstairs, leaving it all in the dark until tomorrow.   
  
Maybe he’d tell her another day.   
  
Maybe he’d tell her tomorrow.   
  
Or maybe when she was on her deathbed and he had the barest hint of arthritis in his joints and greys in his hairline.   
  
Maybe.


End file.
